THE 'TABLET' MILITANT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 79, 31 October 1874, Page 8

THE 'TABLET' MILITANT.

THE POPE A MASOtf. A good man struggling with adversity is, it is said, a sight on winch the gods might look with pleasure. In like manner it may be suid that a small journal like the New Zeaiand Tablet, suffering under the united attacks of so many able and powerful Protestant contemporary in the Province of Otago, is a spectacle all honest and sincere lovers of truth and justice may look on with interest. You arefisjhtiug the battle of right, justice, common sense, aud the Church against heavy odds. The • Times,' < Guardian,' ' Star,' and ' Bruce Herald' are all doing their utmost to prove the Pope and you in the wrong, and fiat Pio Nono, after all, lias been a member till recently of that unblessed Masonic body which his predecessors have denounced, and which he himself Las also formally condemned in the strongest language as "The Synagogue of Satan." Your contemporaries are bliuded by their anti-Catholic prejudices to such a degree as to loss sight of common decency and common sense — we may almost say of common honesty. They would persuade themselves and others that Pius the IX. is either au egragious and shameless hypocrite or a drivelling fool, instead of being what he is well known to be — a man of a clear intellect and unimpeachable honor. Tiie evil-doer ever suspects evil in his neighbor. The motive for attempting to prove the Pope to have continued a Mason till he was formally expelled the fraternity cannot be a good one. Such an attempt bears absurdity and malice on its very head an x jront. Your Otago contemporaries have not heard the last of this strange story, to which they have lent so greedy on ear. Pin them to their words. Shame them, if that be in thia case possible. The ignorant and bigotted traducer of the Pope and the Catholic Church is, indeed, very hard to shame. He is usually a brazen-fuced traducer. He "knows not what he says nor whereof lie affirms " about Catholic principles and characters, but speaks at random, and without adequate examination. Like the cuckoo, he repeats, almost mechanically or by instinct, what others of his kidney say. One of the most hopeful signs for the Catholic Church in Dunedin and this Colony generally is the anxiety of the Protestant Press to hold you up as the defender of intollerance and bigotry, and to prove Dr. Moran an " aggressive Bishop." They either know not the import of their terms, or they refuse to understand what Catholics really believe, in their political any more than their religious creeds. But you are instructing them. True, they are perverse pupils, and it will go hard with you to make much of them for a time ; but they are at least not indifferent in the matter, and that is a thing. Better an honest, bigoted opponent, eager to confute you, than a man who shows a stoical apath/ to your views, when published. Indifference is the hardest aud most stubborn soil on which the defender or propagator of truth has to work, and you may be thankful that your Protestant contemporaries are anything but indifferent to your teaching. They have long been in the habit of believing and representing the Catholic Church as opposed to v free Press, to free thought, and free enquiry, as well as to the Bible. Thay begin to find, out their mislake. Catholics fear not, but court fair and "temperate controversy on aU their principles, civil or religious. You are not afraid to eater the lists sihgle-ha&ded against the formidable array of J-Votestmit jouniuliats in Dunedin. Tue public, both Catholic and Protestant, are spectators of the exciting controversial tournament, and. no doubt, in the chivalrous spirit of old tiires, cry out " Q-od speed the right." Your contemporaries are obviously in a fix : they must cither treat you with contemptuous silence, and let you pursue your " propagandism" unmolested, which they doubtless regard as dangerous to " the Protestant cause" in this rapid age, and in the present inquisitive temper of the Protestant mind, or they must oppose iv the hope of confuting you and destroying your influence. This latter course they select, and it shows courage and consistency in them to do so. Depend upon it, your Protestant contemporaries are sound at heart, good men and staunch, ttnd only require more self-knowledge and Catholio teaching to bring them into the right way. Pope fiua IX. is a genuine Reformer, and, as such, a genuine advocate of the newspaper Press. Even the little Tablet is not : beneath his patronising influence. In the course of an encouraging

letter to a member of the Fourth Estate in South America, on a recent occasion, he remarked that the light of Catholic truth often penetrated, through the medium of the newspaper Press, into places which the voice of a Catholic priest could not reach. The remark is applicable to Sew Zealand as well as to South America. Even a Protestant editorial sanctum may be one of the dark places the Pope refers to. If few of the Protestant public generally ever rend your paper, perhaps many Protestant editors glance at its contents. They are " leaders " of the people in everything, sacred or profane, and, an a rule, they are honest and sincere, as well as highly educated and able men. The wonder is that men of their various knowledge and inquisitive minds can resist the force of Catholic truth so obstinately and so long. But the force of early prejudice, supported by worldly interests of a legitimate kind, who can measure it ? Alas ! poor humanity ; how frail thou art. Yet man has been created but little lower than the angels — noble in reason and infinite in faculties, with un apprehension like a God, as Shakspeare has it. It appears that at least one of the learned Professors of the Otago University reads the Tablet, — Professor Hutton. It will do him good, if he have the large soul of & *eal Professor. Obsbevee.